Two of the four macroeconomic adjustment programmes, Portugal and Ireland’s, can be considered a success in the sense that the initial expectations in terms of adjustment, both fiscal and external, were broadly fulfilled. A rebound based on exports has taken hold in these two countries, but a...

We derive an analytic expression describing how health costs and death counts of the Covid-19 pandemic change over time as vaccination proceeds. Meanwhile, the disease may continue to spread exponentially unless checked by Non Pharmacological Interventions (NPI). The key factors are that the...

We analyze the benefits and costs of a non-euro country opting-in to the banking union. The decision to opt-in depends on the comparison between the assessment of the banking union attractiveness and the robustness of a national safety net. The benefits of opting-in are still only potential and...

This paper examines business cycle synchronization in the European Monetary Union with a special focus on the core-periphery pattern in the aftermath of the crisis. Using a quarterly index for business cycle synchronization by Cerqueira (2013), our panel data estimates suggest that it is...

The asset purchase program of the Euro area, active between 2015 and 2018, constitutes an interesting special case of Quantitative Easing (QE) because the ECB's (Public Sector Purchase Program) PSPP program involved the purchase of the bonds of peripheral Euro area governments, which were...

Key messages: The Policy Brief analyzes to what extent the funds provided by the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) are used by member states to finance new projects (additionality of public investments). The analysis shows that in the EU-27 there is no significant relationship between the...